


Father to the Man

by Mab (Mab_Browne)



Series: Cloudbusting [8]
Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Community: sentinel_thurs, Family, Gen, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-07
Updated: 2012-02-07
Packaged: 2017-10-30 17:58:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/334524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mab_Browne/pseuds/Mab
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim, Blair, and Rob go fishing.  Teenagers.  What can you do?  Last story in the Cloudbusting series.  Written in 2011.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Father to the Man

**Author's Note:**

> This story is marked slash for the J/B pairing and gen for the fact that the main story interaction is a familial relationship with a teenage boy.

Jim sorted through his tackle box, while Blair perched warily on a log, one eye on Jim, the other on the skinny boy nearly a hundred yards down the river. Rob disappeared around an outcropping of river bank, which left Blair with just Jim to watch, as far as he could with Jim’s face shaded by the bill of his cap.

“I’m starting to think that Carolyn made a big mistake here, Chief. At least when she says that she’s going to kill him, she couldn’t actually do it.”

“Neither could you,” Blair said.

Instead of answering him, Jim’s head jerked up from his box of gear, and he rose to his feet, to glare down the river. “Christ, I am just goddam venting, and if this is the way you respect your mother’s privacy, then it’s no wonder she wanted you out of the goddam house!” He whirled around to face Blair. “I mean...shit! Most parents do not have to deal with a kid that can and _will_ argue with you from half way down the damn block!”

“Uncool,Rob. Definitely uncool,” Blair murmured. It seemed that Rob was finished, because his father dropped back into a crouch, his broad shoulders stiff, his head bowed, the picture of defeat.

Blair was unsure which urge was stronger - to laugh or kick two sets of sentinel asses. “Okay. So what are we going to do about your goddam son, Jim?”

Jim had the grace to look sheepish. “I don’t know. He won’t talk to his mother, he won’t talk to me, and he will have scared all the fish away for miles kicking through the water like that.” He sounded forlorn, and it wasn’t over scared fish. Blair rose from his seat on the log and rested his hands on Jim’s shoulders.

“Give it some time, man. We’ve barely been here a couple of hours.”

“And Rob and I have been at each other’s throats practically since we got in the car.” Jim shrugged under Blair’s hands. “I don’t even know what we’re arguing about half the time. I wasn’t like this with my old man.”

“Uh-huh.”

“No, I was not. Hell, I wouldn’t have dared to give my father half the crap that Rob’s been giving Carolyn and me recently.”

“That may not be that bad a thing. You didn’t dare to push the boundaries with your Dad, because the stakes went way too high for that. Rob’s willing to test his parents. That’s actually a positive situation.”

Jim stood, keeping himself turned towards the quiet flow of the river. “No offense, Chief, but that sounds like New Age bullshit.”

“No offense taken, Jim,” Blair said snidely, crossing his arms.

“Ah shit.” Jim rubbed a hand across his face, before looking at Blair with helpless apology. “Maybe you could talk to him.”

“Me? ” Blair protested. “What makes you think that he’ll talk to me?”

“ _I_ talk to you.”

Blair raised his eyes to the sky. “We’re kind of different, man.”

“I know. But come on.” Jim’s mouth twitched in a tiny smile. “Please, Obi-Wan Sandburg. You’re my only hope.”

Blair never could resist Jim at play – and Jim knew it, too. “Okay, but on one condition. You don’t snoop on us, and I get to promise Rob discretion if he does open up.”

Jim shook his head. “Only if it’s not something serious.”

“Boundaries, Jim. You can’t bitch him out for not respecting people’s privacy if you don’t give it back.” If the set jaw was anything to go by, Jim was reconsidering his options. “That’s the deal. Take it, or go talk to him yourself.”

Jim’s hands lifted in surrender. “Okay. Okay. I don’t pump you for information, and I don’t listen in.” One hand clasped Blair’s shoulder. “Good luck,” Jim said sourly.

Blair mock-saluted and, at the look on Jim’s face, bobbed up towards Jim’s jaw for a speedy kiss. “He’s turning sixteen soon, Jim. This is normal. Okay?”

“Yeah. Sure.” Jim turned to start carefully placing their gear into what was presumably the Platonic ideal of the perfect campsite. 

Blair walked along the river bank, gathering a few disciplines to himself, and putting his internal grumbles aside. He’d always presumed that he’d end up attempting to counsel a teenage sentinel, as soon as the fishing trip was first mooted. That didn’t mean that he had to like it, though. But, he reminded himself, this was a pleasant spot, and a pleasant day in a dull-skied way. Not bad for fishing at all. Rob was standing by the river near a grouping of good sized trees, their shadows dappling the water’s surface. He bent now and then to pick up stones and throw them into the river. He was very nearly as tall as his father but rail thin and still awkward with his new length of limb. Even without a bright sun, the reddish tints in his hair were plain.

Rob didn’t bother turning his head. “Sent you to play good cop, huh?” A stone the size of Jim’s fist splashed into the water closer to the river’s opposite bank.

That took Blair back, to the bullpen and Simon’s gruff voice. ‘Sandburg, you are not a cop.’ Such a long time ago, however he measured his life. “Not exactly,” he said cheerily, and settled himself into a cross-legged sit under a tree.

“I don’t even know why we had to come.” Another splash.

“You like fishing,” Blair said tranquilly.

“But I’m not here to fish, I’m here to get the third degree.” Rob’s voice turned TV Nazi. “Ve haff vays of making you talk!”

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“Bull!”

Blair spread out his hands, even though Rob was still staring the water. “Hey. No thumb screws here.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Rob muttered. But he didn’t leave, either for upstream or downstream; he just kept throwing the occasional stone.

Blair settled himself down to wait. Any time was a good time for meditation, and the river’s flow made a peaceful backdrop and symbol. Blair shut his eyes, and let everything flow. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been at peace, when he realised that Rob was sitting next to him, his knees drawn up to his chest, his arms wrapped across his knees. They sat quietly for a few minutes.

“If I talk, does this mean that I get Mom and Dad off my back?”

“Maybe. I’ve been getting reports that you’re not that easy to live with lately, and parents tend to get stressed out about that.”

“I’m a teenaged boy. I’m not supposed to be easy to live with.” It was downright smug.

“Your mom sounded pretty worried.”

“There’s a kid at school who killed himself, and everyone’s panicking that we’re all sheeple who’re going to copy-cat him.”

“And are you?”

Rob rolled his eyes. “No.” He drew the word out so that it had about three separate variations of the vowel.

“Then you should tell your mom that.”

“I did, but she doesn’t believe me.”

“That’s always tough.”

“Tell me about it. I just want her to leave me alone, and stop getting on my back. My grades are good, I don’t get drunk with my friends , I don’t get why she just can’t let me get my head on straight without dragging Dad and you into it!”

“Okay. Then just enjoy your weekend fishing,” Blair said. There was something about Rob’s face when he mentioned Blair and Jim’s involvement, a tautening of the sharp-cut youthful face.

“Yeah, sure. That’ll be easy with Dad looking pissed off when he’s not looking woebegone and reproachful.”

Blair laughed. “Impressive vocabulary, man.”

“I told you. I study. I study hard. I want to be a doctor. And Mom’s great with that, she sees how the senses will fit into that, plus it’ll give her some really impressive bragging rights when she sees the aunts and uncles.” Rob spread his hands to indicate the extent of Carolyn’s bragging rights.

“The senses are good?”

“Mostly. I have trouble sometimes, but nothing I can’t handle if I take my time.”

Blair had that feeling again, a mental version of seeing something out of the corner of his eye, and he was trying to figure out the right question when Rob blurted, “Were you always gay?”

Okay, Blair thought. Finally, we are cooking with gas, here. “I think I was always flexible,” he said.

“So how many men did you sleep with before Dad?”

None, Blair thought. None at all _before_ your father, and there is no way I’m discussing any of that mess with you, ever.

“A few. And that’s all the details you’re getting.”

“But you liked girls, too, right?”

“Yeah, I liked girls. But then I found out that I loved your father.”

“And Dad obviously slept with a girl at least once.” Rob’s mouth twisted slightly.

“Parents do apparently have sex,” Blair said dryly. That got him the side eye. “Look, Rob, your sexuality when you’re a teenager isn’t something set – "

Rob cut him off. “I know that crap, Blair. I live in San Francisco, and nowadays we have libraries and the internet and all that modern stuff. And I like girls. I really, _really_ like girls.”

“Then there’s no problem.”

Rob stood, almost exploding upwards. “Actually, there is, there’s this really honking fucking huge problem! Because if you’re right about all the dream stuff, and everything, then one day I’m going to meet my guide. And I don’t want some guy to be my guide. You know Ryan McArthur? He’s my best friend, and I love him, but sleeping with him would make me puke!”

Whatever Rob saw on Blair’s face made him stutter to a halt. “I don’t mean that there’s anything wrong with being gay. I love Dad and you. But I like _girls_!” His voice, only half-broken, slid up the scale into something closer to a child’s tones rather than man’s. Blair hoped desperately that Jim was keeping his promise to not listen in to this; Jim would cope, but he’d cope better with this flood of feeling at second hand. Rob’s raw denial cut close to the bone.

“You don’t have to have sex with your guide, Rob.” And that was true, surely, even if it hadn’t been how it happened for Blair and Jim. But then all Blair had to go on was his own experience, Jim's sparse memories of Incacha, and some frankly disturbing suspicions about Lee Brackett and Alex Barnes.

“What if you do?” Rob said miserably.

Something in Blair’s own pain and confusion shifted, somehow, like a curtain drawing apart. He rose too, and stepped forward to grab Rob’s arms and hold him steady.

“What are you dreaming about?” he demanded. “And don’t bullshit me.”

Rob turned his head aside, the skin stretched tight over muscles and the bony jawline. There was still nothing more than peach fuzz on his face, and the adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “I’m walking in the jungle, and I can see a bird. It’s a long way off. It doesn’t get any closer, not yet, but whenever I look at the sky in the distance I see it. I don’t think it’s a big bird, but it’s got a curved beak – like an eagle, but little. And coloured feathers. I don’t dream it all the time, but I dream it enough.”

“And you think it represents your guide?”

“Yeah,” Rob said. He sounded utterly certain and utterly dejected. “I know how it feels when something bad is coming. It’s not like that.”

“Rob...” Blair stopped. He realised he didn’t quite know how to deal with this. He’d had his qualms about destiny and choice, but truly, Jim as sentinel had always delighted him and the mystical aspects, however frightening and uncertain they were sometimes, had still satisfied something in him. Hearing Rob so certain about something that ought to be wonderful, and so distressed by it, upset Blair deeply.

“I have a theory about sentinels’ dreams,” he said eventually.

Rob had pulled away, to sit down once more, his fingers fidgeting at his jeans. “You always have theories,” he muttered.

“Yeah, I know.” Blair didn’t sit down, but instead leaned against a tree trunk and watched this boy sentinel. “My theory is that they’re about choices, about what sort of sentinel you choose to be.”

“Yeah, well I don’t want to be the gay sentinel,” Rob said, and Blair had a moment of fellow-feeling with Jim’s homicidal urges. ‘This isn’t about you’ sing-songed in the back of his mind.

“That might be the choice that you’re being asked to make. But it might not. It might be as simple as being asked to commit to somebody and something. You’re still pretty young, Rob. Commitment is a big deal for everyone.”

“Yeah.” The ‘whatever’... was unspoken, but fairly screamed from Rob’s skin. “What if I don’t want to choose?”

The cold went through Blair then. “We choose with everything we do, Rob, and everything we don’t do. You know that. And maybe the dreams, the bird, they're not meant to be scary. They’re meant to help.”

Rob looked up at him then, sullen and hopeful together. “How?” he asked. It wasn’t quite a whine.

Blair had once said that he felt that there were powers around Jim, and Rob, and he hoped that those powers were with him right now and that he wasn’t just talking out of his ass. “You said you see a bird. Some birds, they have different plumage and markings depending on what sex they are.”

“That’s the great theory? That’s lame, Blair.”

“It’s all I’ve got,” Blair said. “Check it out when you get back home. Since you have libraries and the internet and all that modern stuff.” That got him another eye-roll. “Check it out. Or not. But you make the choice, and then you get to think about the next one. And the next one.”

Rob sighed. “Okay.” His fingers stroked briefly along the stony soil. “You and Dad collected any firewood yet?”

“No.”

“You want to come and get some with me?”

“Why don’t you ask if your dad wants to go with you? You know Mr Super-Survival. Two sentinels, we’ll have the best campfire in the state.”

“Maybe.”

“Go on, Rob. If he’s not still murderous, give him a hug from me, will you?”

“And what are you going to do?”

Blair grinned. “I figured that I might meditate a little more.”

“Sit on your ass is more like it.”

“Show some respect for your elders and do what you’re told.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Rob stood, brushing the sandy dirt off the legs and seat of his jeans. “ _Elders,_ ” he said in tones of disgust, but there was humour under it now. “Don’t meditate too long. You don't want to waste our great fishing trip by sleeping your way through it.”

Blair pointed warningly up the stream towards Jim, his lips pursed because an elder couldn’t look stern with a cheesy grin stretching his face.

Rob headed back towards the campsite, along the bank this time rather than through the water. Blair dropped to the ground under the trees, tired suddenly. He didn’t have sentinel senses, he only had his imagination. With the quiet rush of the stream in his ears, he imagined Rob’s approach to Jim and the stiff, apologetic hug. He imagined a young woman, someone that Rob might meet at college perhaps, someone tough and loyal, and he tried not to be envious that Rob might find that special person so early in his life.

No guarantees, he thought. But he hoped.


End file.
